white balance with flash

Hi recently got a 430ex II to go with me 30D as was wondering what you guys do regarding white balance with flash attatched do you put it in awb or put in flash or other?
cheers shane

AWB is handy. Shoot raw and use 5800K if flash is the main light.

Flash white balance works very well with speedlights and studio strobes.

If possible I recommend shooting a grey card and setting custom WB.

I am not a fan of AWB, and I know that I am about to start a forest fire here, but RAW is way over-rated, and certainly no way to control your white balance.

ninjaboy wrote in post #7664476
Hi recently got a 430ex II to go with me 30D as was wondering what you guys do regarding white balance with flash attatched do you put it in awb or put in flash or other?
cheers shane

The best choice depends greatly on what the rest of the lighting in the area consists of.

For example, if the area is lit with incandescent sources (yellowish), it may be best to put a filter over the flash making its light emulate the incandescent light. Then, use the incandescent white balance setting or do something using a neutral reference such as custom white balance or shooting the reference card in the scene for adjustment of color in post-processing.

And then Skip takes it to the next level....

Have you found decent gels to do this with? I have tried several, to include the ones that came with the SB800, and none of them look quite right.

thanks for replies dont shoot me for asking this one but when setting up custom white balance do you use the flash on the initial picture.
Cheers shane

ninjaboy wrote in post #7665298
thanks for replies dont shoot me for asking this one but when setting up custom white balance do you use the flash on the initial picture.
Cheers shane

Shane, you must use the same type of light for setting up a custom white balance as you will use for lighting the scene. Otherwise, the reference image is useless.

There's a very significant problem when trying to do a custom white balance with a reference card (gray card is best in my opinion) and in mixed lighting (such as incandescent lighting mixed with your flash). The problem is getting the same balance of lighting types on your reference card as would fall on the elements of the scene.

rabidcow wrote in post #7665152
And then Skip takes it to the next level....

Have you found decent gels to do this with? I have tried several, to include the ones that came with the SB800, and none of them look quite right.

I have not had time to experiment with it, but I bought a large chunk of CTO filter gel to play with. My reading suggests that will best emulate incandescent lighting. The gel wasn't expensive if the future experiments don't pan out the way I hope they will.

thanks very much for your time.

Cheers Shane

White balance depends on the look that you are after. Generally speaking I would say carry a set of gells with youso that yourflaah can match ambient. Or you can warm up or cool down the scene to your taste.

An 85B would be a place to start.
Kodak makes a whole range of 3" Wratten gelatin filters for incandescent light as well as CC filters to tweak the colors. They're fairly expensive for what they are, but here are some on eBay for $1.
Or you could use this to find what you need & buy the equivalent heavier theatrical gell.

Seems like if you do a custom WB for a person holding a grey card/white card with flash then you are balancing just for that and if there are any tungsten lighting behind your subject (that you did not do a custom for because you did it for flash in the viewing area) then that background would not turn out right. I only use custom for my outdoor portraits, other wise I gel my flash for all indoor shots.

what ninjaboy hasn't told us is just what he's shooting? If it's a real estate shot, & there's light coming in from a window, I'd WB for the daylight, maybe gell the flash, & let the incandescent lights go warm. If it's a portrait, I'd Custom WB for the face.

the flash will mostly be used for taking portraits of kids as 28 - 135 on body most of time and noticed when light starts to go so does quality of pic. also got niftty 50

here one of first shots taken in hostpital this week window was behind me and bounced flash of ceiling or wall for this shot cant remember exactly.

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If the wall is behind you, or the ceiling is behind you, you should have a softer light on the face & under the eyes.
Or you could try this old trick:
https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=7673927&po​stcount=15